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United States of America Wiki:Style guide
This style guide has the simple purpose of making the United States of America Wiki easy to read by establishing a certain format. One way is often as good as another, but if everyone does things the same way, the articles will be easier to read and use, along with being easier to write and edit. Reading the style guide is important to ensure that each user's edits will be consistent with those of other users. Article titles Pages must have appropriate titles. Names, locations, and titles (like a quest) should all be capitalised, though not the whole title. Try to make the article's topic the subject of the first sentence in the article. For example, write "This style manual is a style guide" instead of "This style guide is known as..." Use boldface ( in the edit tool bar) for the first (and only the first) appearance of the title. Articles should be titled exactly as the subject's name appears in real life. Unless the subject's name has more than one capital in real life, don't put a capital at the beginning of every word. This is a common mistake which often causes broken links and time being diverted to moving these pages. If you are in doubt about a name, please check it. If you come across a page with an incorrect title, please move it to the correct title and edit it to make the correct title consistent. If a page's title conflicts with its content, make the content consistent with the title before checking in-game to ensure accuracy. Sections and headings Separating articles into sections makes them easy to read and navigate. Headings are used to split articles into sections. Markup Use two equal signs ( ) style markup for headings. Start with , add the heading title, then end with . This section's heading was created with the markup: : Sections and headings This subsection's heading was created with the markup: : Markup Wording * In a heading, capitalise only the first letter of the first word and the first letter of any proper nouns, and leave all of the other letters in lowercase. * Avoid putting links in headings. * Make sure that the heading has an appropriate and accurate title, as this is important to help readers navigate the article. For example, do not make a "United States of America presidents" section in an article about wildlife in United States of America. * Keep headings short. Text elements Font colours Coloured font can be used sparingly, though not in very bright colours. For example, you can use a dark colour for a warning. Note that light colours will not show up well against the article's white background. Invisible comments Invisible comments are used to communicate with other editors in the article body. To do so, enclose the text which you intend to be read only by editors within . For example, doing will be hidden in the article. Bulleted lists Bulleted lists can be used when listing multiple facts. For example, you can use bullets if you're listing the names of cities in a certain area of the United States of America. Don't forget proper punctuation. To add bullets, put an asterisk (*) before the name. For example: * List name 1 * List name 2 * List name 3 would come out as: * List name 1 * List name 2 * List name 3 Numbered lists All the rules for bulleted lists apply also to numbered lists. Numbered lists can be used for listing steps in a process. To add a numbered list, put a number sign (#) before the list name. For example: # List name 1 # List name 2 # List name 3 would come out as: # List name 1 # List name 2 # List name 3 Bold and italics Place two apostrophes (Italicised text, or in the edit tool bar) on either side of a selection of text to italicise the selection. Italics are mainly used to emphasise certain words, though they should be used sparingly. Also note that the word United States of America should always be italicised. Italics may make longer phrases or sentences difficult to read. Place three apostrophes (Boldfaced text) on either side of a selection of text to boldface the selection. Bold is used as a stronger emphasis than italics, although it should be used sparingly as well. The first appearance of an article's title in the article should always be boldfaced. Place five apostrophes (Boldfaced and italicised text) on either side of a selection to use bold and italics in combination on the selection. Bold and italics combined emphasise selections well, but should be used extremely rarely. There are no common cases in which bold and italics are used together. As you can see, bold works well to emphasise sentences as well as short phrases and single words, while italics are a much weaker emphasis for sentences, but work well on short phrases or single words. Bold and italics are used in combination very rarely. Excessive use of any of these text elements will make the entire article difficult to read, so please use them in appropriate situations. Grammar and spelling Abbreviations Try to not use abbreviations. For example, use "Governor" instead of "Gvrnr" Some users may not know what these abbreviations mean. As far as looks goes, it's much more pleasing to the eye to look at "The flowers in this area of United States of America are.." than it is to look at "da flowers in dis area of mizzou r.." It is even worse when you type something in "Leet Speak", also known as "1337 5P34K." This wiki's preferred language is British English, not numbers (translation: 3n6L15H, n07 nUM83r5) Punctuation If you are listing multiple things, such as different state animals, each of them should be followed by a comma. For example, "Missouri mule, honeybee, and fox trotter" would be proper, and "Missouri mule, honeybee and fox trotter" would not be. If you are compiling a list that contains quantities, try to not use brackets to denote quantities. For example, instead of "Democrats in Congress (5,17,35)" it should be "5, 17 or 35 Democrats in Congress." Usage and Spelling * The M'' in ''United States of America is always capitalised. United States of America should also be italicised. * Missouri should never be spelled with an a'' at the end (i.e. ''Missoura). * British spelling should be used at all times. Common examples include: ** Armour instead of armor ** Behaviour instead of behavior ** Colour instead of color ** Honour instead of honor ** Humour instead of humor ** Capitalise instead of capitalize ** Analyse instead of analyze ** Dialogue instead of Dialog ** Duelling instead of dueling ** Jewellery instead of jewelry ** Centre instead of center ** Grey instead of gray ** Artefact instead of artifact ** Storey instead of story (plural: storeys instead of stories) * For directions and compounds, hyphens should be included. For example: ** South-west instead of southwest ** North-east instead of northeast * See also: American and British English spelling differences and variations. Images Some general guidelines which should be followed are listed below. *The first image should be right-aligned. For other images in the article, right-alignment is preferred to left- or center-alignment. However, center-alignment can be used for some images in the quest pages, such as the reward picture. *If there are too many images in a given article, consider making a gallery with a level two heading. *Use captions to explain the relevance of the image to the article. *Make large images a thumb. *Specifying the size of a thumb image is not recommended. Uploading images *The preferred formats for images are PNG. *Images of items should have a transparent background. *Please name your files descriptively to avoid confusion. For example if you are uploading a picture of your bank, name it Your Username_Bank.PNG and not just Bank.PNG or MyBank.PNG. *'Do not upload duplicate images'. Before you upload an image, search the wiki to see if someone has already uploaded a version of it. We don't need or if someone has already uploaded . Captions Complete sentences in captions should always end in a full stop (period). If the caption is not a complete sentence, it generally should not have a full stop at the end. Captions should also not be italicised. Wikilinking *Every time an article is mentioned on the page, you don't have to link to every single one. For example, United States of America may be mentioned five times, but you only have to link to United States of America once. You can link to articles more than once if the page is very long. *Use efficient link formats, especially for plurals. For example, Animals instead of lAnimals. *When including wikilinks in an article, there is no need to use capitalization or underscores, since the software produces them automatically. Writing articles Everyone is encouraged to contribute meaningfully to the wiki. Ownership and bias * Keep personal bias out of articles. Remember that this is an encyclopedia so everything must be written from a neutral point of view. * [[US:DSA|'Nobody owns articles']]. This is a wiki, after all. This means words like "I," "we," or "me" should not be included in articles. * Do not include specific usernames of wiki users in articles. * Do not attempt to claim "facts" such as "Missouri almost became an independent nation" without facts to back up the statement. Facts and trivia * If you have a piece of information or trivia that you would like to add to an article, yet are unsure of its accuracy, leave a note on the talk page of the article so that all editors can discuss it. Do not engage in edit wars on the article page. Numbers For numbers, a comma should be used as a thousands separator. Floor numbering Use the American convention for floor numbering: first floor is British ground floor, second floor is British first floor, etc. Template:Floor is available to be placed at the top of articles which references building floors. Dates Use the International format (dd/mm/yyyy - 1 May 2008) rather than the American format (mm/dd, yyyy - May 1, 2008). Note that no commas are used in the International format. Jagex and most of the world uses the International format. :See Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) as well as Wikipedia:Calendar date. External links Feel free to link to other sites, such as [http://www.mo.gov United States of America's official website]. * Other United States of America Wiki policies Style guide